This week’s photo was quite the challenge–as you’ll see when you read the story.

I grew up on a farm which had a lot of forest throughout it, and a walk through the woods revealed some very interesting, natural works of art: two different types of trees whose trunks had fused, trees that grew around or through abandoned farm equipment, a forgotten scythe, rusted almost away, which had been imbedded in a tree branch but which had been “carried” up as the tree grew. Many a bovine skeleton fired my imagination–and followed me in my dreams–back then.

So, this week’s picture made me smile before it stumped me, and then an idea came to me. Some might consider the story, “Thus Endeth the Lesson” blasphemy. Just relax. It’s fiction. Or is it the future?

If you don’t see the link in the story title in the paragraph above, hover your cursor over the Friday Fictioneers tab at the top of the page and select it from the drop-down menu.

To read other offerings (that’s foreshadowing my story, by the way) from Friday Fictioneers, click on the frog-like icon at the bottom of my story and enjoy the fruits of our fecund imaginations.